A lazy post this, but also an experiment, for unspecified nefarious purposes: republishing an old post from a year ago, very lightly edited … (apologies to all those who’ve seen it before)
BLDGBLOG posted on the Helicopter Archipelago a couple of times, based on the work of Geoff Manaugh himself and Leah Beeferman at inkbox.org (who commented on the original post). They visualise “a linked network of solar-powered helicopters flying permanently over transnational seas, full of folk songs, tanned deck-hands, and hammocked fruit trees.” The machines remind me of the steampunk vehicles of Jasper Morello, although these are principally for the purpose of trade and ‘adventuring’, rather than dwelling.
There’s a potent mythic element to this utopian vision, and it taps that strong vein of literature and lore about autonomous moving vehicles. Of particular note is Ron Herron’s futurist ‘Walking City’:
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From Homer’s Odyssey to Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, the idea of the ship and the micronation have long been intertwined. Perhaps the best example is Jonathan Swift’s Laputa, the floating island in Gulliver’s Travels, and more recently the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki’s Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta (1986), among many others.
The idea of micronations seems to be gaining interest again, as the BLDGBLOG post cursorily examines. One story I’ve been following for a long time is that of Sealand, with which people seem to have a love/hate relationship. Lonely Planet have even produced a guidebook to micronations (see interview with editor Simon Sellars here). That micronations could be mobile is a further challenge to our entrenched notions of Westphalian statehood.
Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by populated bridges, which are the architectural and ideological ‘opposites’ of floating islands. The old London Bridge, Iain Banks’ The Bridge, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge first encountered in William Gibson’s Virtual Light are all good examples. Instead of bridges serving only as conduits for information, they become producers and consumers of information. One of the things that I loved about Cairo when I lived there was the way Cairenes take over the Nile bridges at holidays and festivals, sometimes to the virtual exclusion of vehicular traffic. Reclamation of network space.
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Filed under: architecture, future, information
